Tonight's Movie: World Without End (1956) - A Warner Archive Blu-ray Review

The Allied Artists sci-fi film WORLD WITHOUT END (1956) has just been released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive.

This mid '50s film may be hokey at times -- giant plastic spiders attack the heroes early on! -- but it's also highly entertaining, and the new Blu-ray is a thing of beauty. Those who love '50s sci-fi will want to grab this one.

The plot concerns four astronauts (Hugh Marlowe, Rod Taylor, Nelson Leigh, and Christopher Dark) who've been on a mission to cruise by Mars when their ship loses contact with Earth. The men pass out and ultimately crash land on Earth...and then realize they've hurtled forward in time by hundreds of years.

That realization comes as a particular blow to one of the men (Dark) who left behind a wife (Nancy Howard) and two children (Mimi Gibson and Hugh Corcoran), but there's no time to grieve as within short order the men must battle for survival, attacked by the giant (plastic) spiders and then a violent band of one-eyed cavemen.

Ultimately the men are rescued by an underground community, survivors of an atomic war, which mostly consists of elderly men, gorgeous young women (Nancy Gates, Lisa Montell, and Shawn Smith) in space miniskirts, and very few children.

The children are dying living underground, and the men left in the community don't have the nerve to fight the atomic mutants who live on the earth's surface. It's up to the astronauts to show the men how to retake earth and bring their children into the sunlight.

Between the spiders, the one-eyed mutants, and "earth" being good old Iverson Ranch here in Southern California, the movie may seem a bit silly at times, but all in all it's got a good script and an engaging cast.

Marlowe starred the same year in the classic EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS (1956), and he makes a good sci-fi hero, sort of in a Richard Carlson mode. And Rod Taylor completely steals the show with his Aussie charm; I imagine he was supposed to be American but he's got an accent in this one. Taylor was just emerging into stardom in 1956, with a supporting role in GIANT (1956) and a starring part opposite Debbie Reynolds in THE CATERED AFFAIR (1956); a few years later he would also star in another time travel film, the classic THE TIME MACHINE (1960).

WORLD WITHOUT END has lots of eye candy between the shirtless Taylor, the miniskirted Gates, and the fun and colorful underground sets. There's also a thoughtful script which, like so many '50s sci-fi films, reflects the fears of the atomic era.

WORLD WITHOUT END was written and directed by Edward Bernds. It was filmed in CinemaScope by Ellsworth Fredricks. The running time is a brisk 80 minutes.

The Warner Archive Blu-ray looks fantastic and is highly recommended for '50s sci-fi fans. There are no extras.

Thanks to the Warner Archive for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray. Warner Archive Blu-rays may be ordered from Amazon or from any online retailers where DVDs and Blu-rays are sold.